Vision & Core Principles

The visual and performing arts are an integral part of a comprehensive curriculum and are essential for learning in the 21st century. All California students from every culture, geographic region and socio-economic level–deserve quality arts learning in dance, music, theatre, and visual arts as part of the core curriculum.

Rich & Affirming Learning Environments

Create a safe, affirming, and enriched environment for participatory and inclusive learning in and through the visual and performing arts for every group of students.

Empowering Pedagogy

Use culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy that maximizes learning in and through the visual and performing arts, actively accesses and develops student voice, and provides opportunities for leadership for every group of students.

Challenging & Relevant Curriculum

Engage every group of students in comprehensive, well-articulated and age-appropriate visual and performing arts curriculum that also purposefully builds a full range of language, literacy, and other content area skills, including whenever possible, bilingualism. biliteracy, and multiculturalism. This curriculum is cognitively complex, coherent, relevant, and challenging.

High Quality Instructional Resources

Provide and utilize high quality standards-aligned visual and performing arts instructional resources that provide each group of students with equitable access to core curriculum and academic language in the classroom, school, and community.

Valid & Comprehensive Assessment

Build and implement valid and comprehensive visual and performing arts assessment systems designed to promote reflective practice and data-driven planning in order to improve academic, linguistic, and sociocultural outcomes for each specific group of students.

High Quality Professional Preparation & Support

Provide coherent, comprehensive and ongoing visual and performing arts professional preparation and support programs based on well-defined standards of practice. These programs are designed to create professional learning communities of administrators, teachers, and other staff to implement a powerful vision of excellent arts instruction for each group of students.

Powerful Family/Community Engagement

Implement strong family and community engagement programs that build leadership capacity and value and draw upon community funds of knowledge to inform, support, and enhance visual and performing arts teaching and learning for each specific group of students.

Advocacy-Oriented Administrative/Leadership Systems

Provide advocacy-oriented administration and leadership that institute system-wide mechanisms to focus all stakeholders on the diverse visual and performing arts needs and assets of each specific group of students. These administrative and leadership systems structure, organize, coordinate, and integrate visual and performing arts programs and services to respond systemically to the needs and strengths of each group of students.